Read The Warrior Prophet Online
Authors: R. Scott Bakker
The Warrior Prophet (40 page)
Somehow a note of anger had crept into his tone.
Kellhus smiled, raised his downcast eyes. Tears scored his cheek.
“Like a child,” he said.
The words knocked Achamian from his feet. He crashed to his buttocks with a grunt.
“Yes,” Xinemus agreed. He looked forward into the night, smiling … Smiling for his friend, Achamian realized.
“Like a child?” Achamian asked, feeling curiously childlike.
“Yes,” Kellhus replied. “You ask no questions, Akka. It simply
is
… Without reserve.” He turned to him with the look Achamian knew so well, the look he so often yearned for when others occupied Kellhus’s attention. The look of friend, father, student, and teacher. The look his heart could see.
is
… Without reserve.” He turned to him with the look Achamian knew so well, the look he so often yearned for when others occupied Kellhus’s attention. The look of friend, father, student, and teacher. The look his heart could see.
“She’s become your ground,” Kellhus said.
“Yes …” Achamian replied.
She’s become my wife.
Such a thought! He beamed with a childish glee. He felt wonderfully drunk.
My wife!
But later that same night, he somehow found himself making love to Serwë.
Afterward he would scarcely remember, but he’d awakened on a reed mat by the remains of the fire. He’d been dreaming of the white turrets of Myclai and rumours of Mog-Pharau. Xinemus and Kellhus were gone, and the night sky seemed impossibly deep, the way it had looked that night he and Esmenet had slept out of doors at the ruined shrine. Like an endless pit. Serwë knelt above him, as flawless as ivory in the firelight, at once smiling and crying.
“What’s wrong?” he gasped. But then he realized she’d hiked his robe to his waist, and was rolling his cock against his belly. He was already hard—insanely so, it seemed.
“Serwë …”
he managed to protest, but with each roll of her palm, bolts of rapture shuddered through him. He arched against the ground, straining to press himself into her hand. For some reason, it seemed that all he needed, all he’d ever needed, was to feel her fingers close about the head of his member.
he managed to protest, but with each roll of her palm, bolts of rapture shuddered through him. He arched against the ground, straining to press himself into her hand. For some reason, it seemed that all he needed, all he’d ever needed, was to feel her fingers close about the head of his member.
“No,”
he moaned, digging his heels into the turf, clawing at the grass. What was happening?
he moaned, digging his heels into the turf, clawing at the grass. What was happening?
She released him, and he gasped at the kiss of cool air. He could feel his own fiery pulse …
Something. He needed to say something! This couldn’t be happening!
But she’d slipped free her hasas, and he trembled at the sight of her. So lithe. So smooth. White in shadow, burnished gold in firelight. Her peach hazed with tender blond. She no longer touched him, yet her beauty flailed at him, wrenched at his groin. He swallowed, struggled to breathe. Then she straddled him. He glimpsed the porcelain sway of her breasts, the hairless curve of her belly.
Is she with—
She encompassed him. He cried out, cursed.
“It is you!” she hissed, sobbing, staring desperately into his eyes. “I can see you.
I can see!
”
I can see!
”
He turned his head aside in delirium, afraid he would climax too soon. This was Serwë … Sweet Sejenus,
this was Serwë!
this was Serwë!
Then he saw Esmenet, standing desolate in the dark. Watching … He closed his eyes, grimaced, and climaxed.
“Guh … g-guh …”
“I can
feel
you!” Serwë cried.
feel
you!” Serwë cried.
When he opened his eyes Esmenet was gone—if she had ever been.
Serwë continued to grind against him. The whole world had become a slurry of heat and wetness and thundering aching thrusting beauty. He surrendered to her abandon.
Somehow he awoke before the horns and sat for a time at the entrance to his tent, watching Esmenet sleep, feeling the pinch of dried seed on his thighs. When she awoke, he searched her eyes, but saw nothing. Through the hard, long march of the following day, she chastised him for drinking and nothing more. Serwë didn’t so much as look at him. By the following evening he’d convinced himself it had been a dream. A delicious dream.
The perrapta. There could be no other explanation.
Fucking fish liquor,
he thought, and tried to feel ruefully amused.
he thought, and tried to feel ruefully amused.
When he told Esmenet, she laughed and threatened to tell Kellhus. Afterward, alone, he actually wept in relief. Never, he realized, not even the night following the madness with the Emperor beneath the Andiamine Heights, had he felt a greater sense of doom. And he knew he belonged to Esmi—not the world.
She
was his covenant. Esmenet was his wife.
was his covenant. Esmenet was his wife.
The Holy War crept ever closer to Shigek, and still he ignored the Mandate. There were excuses he could assemble. He could ponder the impossibility of making discreet inquiries, bribes, or dissembling suggestions in an encampment of armed fanatics. He could remind himself of what his School had done to Inrau. But ultimately they meant nothing.
He would rush the enemy ranks. He would see his heresy through. To the end, no matter what horrors it might hold. For the first time in a long and wandering life, Drusas Achamian had found happiness.
And peace had come.
The day’s march had been particularly trying, and Serwë sat by the fire, rubbing her toes while staring across the flames at her love, Kellhus. If only it could always be like this …
Four days previous Proyas had sent the Scylvendi south with several hundred knights—to learn the ways into Shigek, Kellhus had said. Four days without chancing upon his famished glare. Four days without cringing in his iron shadow as he escorted her to their pavilion. Four days without his dread savagery.
And each of them spent praying and praying,
Let him be killed!
Let him be killed!
But this was the one prayer Kellhus wouldn’t answer.
She stared and wondered and loved. His long blond hair flashed golden in the firelight; his bearded features radiated good humour and understanding. He nodded as Achamian spoke to him about something—sorcery perhaps. She paid scant attention to the Schoolman’s words. She was too busy listening to Kellhus’s face.
Never had she seen such beauty. There was something inexplicable, something godlike and surreal, about his appearance, as though a breathtaking elegance, an impossible grace, laid hidden within his expressions, something that might flare at any moment and blind her with revelation. A face that made each moment, each heartbeat …
A gift.
She placed a hand on the gentle swell of her belly, and for an instant, she thought she could feel the second heart within her—no larger than a sparrow’s—drumming through moment after thickening moment.
His child … His.
So much had changed! She was wise, far more so, she knew, than a girl of twenty summers should be. The world had chastened her, had shown her the impotence of outrage. First the Gaunum sons and their cruel lusts. Then Panteruth and his unspeakable brutalities. Then Cnaiür and his iron-willed madness. What could the outrage of a soft-skinned concubine mean to a man such as him? Just one more thing to be broken. She knew the futility, that the animal within would grovel, shriek, would place soothing lips around any man’s cock for a moment of mercy—that it would do anything, sate any hunger, to survive. She’d been enlightened.
Submission. Truth lay in submission.
“You’ve surrendered, Serwë,” Kellhus had told her. “And by surrendering, you have conquered me!”
The days of nothing had passed. The world, Kellhus said, had prepared her for
him
. She, Serwë hil Keyalti, was to be his sacred consort.
him
. She, Serwë hil Keyalti, was to be his sacred consort.
She would bear the sons of the Warrior-Prophet.
What indignity, what suffering, could compare with this? Certainly, she wept when the Scylvendi struck her, clenched her teeth in fury and gagging shame when he used her. But afterward she
knew,
and Kellhus had taught her that knowing was exalted above
all other things
. Cnaiür was a totem of the old dark world, the ancient outrage made flesh. For every god, Kellhus had told her, there was a demon.
knew,
and Kellhus had taught her that knowing was exalted above
all other things
. Cnaiür was a totem of the old dark world, the ancient outrage made flesh. For every god, Kellhus had told her, there was a demon.
For every God …
The priests, both those of her father and those of the Gaunum, had claimed the Gods moved the souls of men. But Serwë knew the Gods also moved
as
men. So often, watching Esmenet, Achamian, Xinemus, and the others about the fire, she would be amazed that they couldn’t see, though sometimes she suspected that, in their heart of hearts, they knew and yet were stubborn.
as
men. So often, watching Esmenet, Achamian, Xinemus, and the others about the fire, she would be amazed that they couldn’t see, though sometimes she suspected that, in their heart of hearts, they knew and yet were stubborn.
But then, unlike her, they didn’t couple with a god—and his guises.
They hadn’t been taught how to forgive, how to submit, as she’d been taught, though they learned slowly. She often glimpsed the small, sometimes lonely ways in which he instructed them. And it was a wondrous thing, to watch a god instruct others.
Even now, he instructed them.
“No,” Achamian was asserting. “We sorcerers are distinguished by our ability, you caste-nobles by your blood. What does it matter whether other men recognize us as such? We are what we are.”
With smiling eyes, Kellhus said, “Are you sure?”
Serwë had seen this many times. The words would be simple, but the
way
would wrench at their hearts.
way
would wrench at their hearts.
“What do you mean,” Achamian said blankly.
Kellhus shrugged. “What if I were to tell you that I’m like you.” Xinemus’s eyes flashed to Achamian, who laughed nervously.
“Like me?” the Schoolman asked. He licked his lips. “How so?”
“I can see the Mark, Akka … I can see the bruise of your damnation.”
“You jest,” Achamian snapped, but his voice was strange …
Kellhus had turned to Xinemus. “Do you see? A moment ago, I was no different from you. The distinction between us didn’t exist until just—”
“It still doesn’t exist,” Achamian blurted, his voice rising. “I would have you prove this!”
Kellhus studied the man, his look careful and troubled. “How does one prove what one sees?”
Xinemus, who seemed unperturbed, chuckled. “What is it, Akka? There’s many who see your blasphemy, but choose not to speak it. Think of the College of Luthymae …”
But Achamian had jumped to his feet, his expression bewildered, even panicked. “It’s just that … that …”
Serwë’s thoughts leapt.
He knows, my love! Achamian knows what you are!
He knows, my love! Achamian knows what you are!
She flushed at the memory of the sorcerer between her legs, but then reminded herself that it wasn’t
Achamian
whom she remembered, it was Kellhus …
Achamian
whom she remembered, it was Kellhus …
“You must know me Serwë, in all my guises.”
“There
is
a way to prove this!” the Schoolman exclaimed. He fixed them with a ludicrous stare, then without warning hurried off into the darkness.
is
a way to prove this!” the Schoolman exclaimed. He fixed them with a ludicrous stare, then without warning hurried off into the darkness.
Xinemus had begun muttering some joke, but just then Esmenet sat next to Serwë, smiling and frowning.
“Has Kellhus worked him into a frenzy again?” she asked, handing Serwë a steaming bowl of spiced tea.
“Again,” Serwë said, and grasped the proffered bowl. She tipped a glittering drop to the earth before drinking. It tasted warm, coiled in her stomach like sun-hot silk. “Mmmm … Thank you, Esmi.”
Esmenet nodded, turned to Kellhus and Xinemus. The previous night, Serwë had cut Esmenet’s black hair short—man short—so that now she resembled a beautiful boy.
Almost as beautiful as me,
Serwë thought.
Almost as beautiful as me,
Serwë thought.
She’d never known a woman like Esmenet before: bold, with a tongue as wicked as any man’s. She frightened Serwë sometimes, with her ability to match the men word for word, joke for joke. Only Kellhus could best her. But she had always been considerate. Serwë had asked her once why she was so kind, and Esmenet had replied that the only peace she’d found as a harlot had been caring for those more vulnerable than her. When Serwë insisted she was neither a whore nor vulnerable, Esmenet had smiled sadly, saying, “We’re all whores, Serchaa …”
And Serwë had believed her. How couldn’t she? It sounded so much like something Kellhus might say.
Esmenet turned to look at her. “Was the day’s march hard on you, Serchaa?” She smiled the way Serwë’s aunt had once smiled, with warmth and concern. But then her expression suddenly darkened, as though she’d glimpsed something disagreeable in Serwë’s face. Her eyes became hooded.
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